Pages

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Seeing
the recent spates of sexual misdemeanors, someone wondered aloud, “Is sex
really that strong a lure? And if it is, why not go and ‘buy’ it, instead of
behaving like an animal, or just risking some innocent’s life and reputation?”

A
very valid question and I wonder, what makes men behave the way they do,
especially those that are in a slightly elevated strata of the society. The
news is when the predator is a respected, senior and well-to-do person of the
society, who is more of an icon, but turns out to be no different from a lout.

Sex
has been behind many an episode of misdemeanor and sex outside a legal
relationship has always dominated the headlines. Going back to where I seek my
answers, forceful sex has dominated many mythologies. Be it by Zeus in Greek
mythology, who spared none, be it women or men, or the forced sex by Shiva on
Mohini, the gods would always have their way.

But
let me take a case here, which is not forced in the physical sense of the word,
but forced, in the sense of-not-leaving-any-choice, but to comply. This is also
a case of sex outside the ‘socially acceptable framework’ of society. Or was it
forced? Decide after you read the story….

According
to the epic Mahabharata, Satyavati was the adopted daughter of a fisherman. The
story of her birth is as interesting as it can be and you can read about it in
an earlier article “The Unwanted Girl Child” http://www.utkarshspeak.blogspot.in/search/label/Satyavati . For the present, it should
suffice to say that she was found inside a fish and was adopted by the
fisherman who found her. Since she was found inside a fish, a terrible odour
emanated from her, due to which she was also known as Matsyagandha, ‘smell of a fish’.

It
was due to this problem of hers, that she didn’t have many friends and spent
most of the time alone ferrying people from across the Kalindi river. Once her
passenger happened to be sage Parashar, a powerful and well-known ascetic. He
was smitten by her looks, despite the odour and insisted on making love to her
then and there.

Satyavati,
a virgin till then, was taken aback, but was unable to decline. She reasoned
with the sage, that the terrible smell emanating from her was something that
even she detested and under such circumstances, she would not be able to comply
with his request. The sage then through his powers, removed her fishy odour and
made her smell of musk, and named her Yojanagandha,
one whose fragrance can be smelt from yojanas
(1 yojana was about 9 miles).
Satyavati was still reluctant and said that if they did make love, she would
lose her virginity, and he being an ascetic, would not marry her either, then
how would she face the world? To this sage Parashar promised her, she would
regain her virginity after the act and none would know. Satyavati tried again,
saying that she was in the fertile period and if he made love to her, then she
would conceive. In such a situation how she would face the world with a child.
Sage Parashar, who was determined to have his way, promised that as soon as
they were done, she would give birth to a child who would grow up immediately
and go his own way, with none knowing about it! Satyavati made one last effort
and said that all that was fine, but it was broad daylight and there was a
possibility of someone seeing them, which would be bad for her reputation,
besides the risk of the boat capsizing. Sage Parashar was beginning to lose his
cool and suggested that she take the boat to the centre of the river, close to
an island. Through his powers, he created a dense mist and made the boat and
them invisible in the dense mist.

All
this left no choice form Satyavati, but to give in.

Soon
after, they make love, Satyavati gives birth to a child who grows up
immediately to be a man, and comes to be known as Krishna (dark) Dwaipanya, one who is born in an island, who
goes on to be better known as sage Ved Vyasa. Vyasa goes away with sage
Parashar and Satyavati goes back home and when asked about her changed odour,
she says that it was the blessings of the sage.

This
is an interesting myth, which has two facets to it.

First,
is the helplessness of a woman, who makes all efforts to ward off the advances
of a man, who as in this case was probably fit to be her father. A powerful
man, insists on making love to a virgin, but is clear that he would not marry,
and goes out of his way to use his powers to fulfill his desires, is not
something that is different from many of the recent instances that we have
seen. The girl, who is helpless, makes all efforts to escape, but is unable, as
she is in a precarious situation, of being alone, in the middle of a river,
which seems quite allegorical in itself. She has no witness to stand by her, as
the powerful sage had created an envelope of mist, for none to see, which is
the case in many instances, even in modern times – no witness against the high
and mighty.

The
second aspect is the clever usage of the advances made by a powerful person, as
done by Satyavati. She ensures that her odour is removed, her virginity
restored and her reputation intact. Some versions even say that she negotiated
eternal youth and beauty with the sage. Many might see this as opportunism, or simply
put smart usage of the situation by the victim. Mythical times were different from present
times, so I am not sure, how this could be utilized today, if at all.

How
should the world see this? Was this forced? Was it rape or was it
consensual-sex? If one asks sage Parashar, it was consensual, since he did not
force himself on her and she had agreed to her advances. If one asked Satyavati,
she would say, it was forced as she had no choice and she had no option. The
world then never raised a finger on sage Parashar for his act and nor has the
world ever bothered to debate this from his angle. Sage Parashar never had to
bring this to the public notice, but Satyavati had to bring Sage Vyasya in the
picture when her son died without an heir. She had to relate the incident to
Bhishma, who supposedly kept quiet about it, but one can imagine Satyavati’s
embarrassment in talking about her pre-marital sex and the resultant child.

Have
times changed much? Just as sage Parashar went his way after the act, the high
and mighty of the present day society too go scot free. The only change if at
all is that they do get maligned for a while, if the woman musters guts and
courage, but then its business as usual. Court visits, mud-singling on the
women’s character, unwanted media-glare, and when all fails; there still is the
option of out-of-court settlement.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Sage Kashyap had
two wives, Kadru and Vinata. Kadru was the mother of the nag’s or snakes and Vinata was the mother of Aruna (who became Sun’s
charioteer) and Garuda, one with a body of a man and face and wings of an
eagle, who was also the vahana of
Lord Vishnu.

Once the two
sisters had wagered on whether Indra’s horse was all white or not. While Vinata
said that it was completely white, Kadru maintained that it had a black tail.
The loser of the wager would be the servant of the winner. The next day in the
sunlight, they checked and noticed that the horse indeed had a black tail.
However what was not known to Vinata was that Kadru had asked some of her
children to wrap themselves around the tail of the horse to make it look black.
As per the condition, Vinata became Kadru’s servant and she had to undergo
trials and a hard life.

When Garuda grew
up, he too had to do menials for the children of Kadru. Once Garuda decided to
end this subservience and asked the children of Vinata the price for releasing
his mother of servitude. The children asked for nectar from the heavens, which
was nothing but impossible.

After many
twists and turns, Garuda managed to steal the pot of nectar from Lord Indra’s
custody. However, Indra managed to convince Garuda that the nectar was not
meant for the nag’s, as that would
immortalise them, which would be against the laws of nature. Garuda reasoned
that he had undertaken the adventure and risked his life to release his mother
of a life of servitude and he would not care beyond that.

Later, Garuda
relented and suggested to Indra and that he would hand the pot to them and seek
his mother’s release and after which he could steal the pot from them. As
agreed, Garuda handed over the pot of the nectar and got his mother released.
Just when they were about to consume the nectar, Garuda suggested that it might
be a good idea to have a bath before consuming the food of the gods. The nags left the pot on the kusha grass and went for a bath in the
river. Once Indra saw the pot on the grass, he picked it up and started to
leave. The nags noticed Indra fleeing
with the pot and they chased him. While fleeing, a few drops of the nectar fell
from the pot on the kusha grass which
is known for being sharp. The snakes didn’t want to miss out on whatever they
got and so tried to lick the nectar from the grass, but got their tongues slit
due to the sharp blades of the kusha
grass.

Since then, the
snakes are supposed to have forked tongues and since they had harassed Garuda’s
mother all her life, the snakes became the natural enemies of the eagle too!

About Me

Utkarsh has qualifications in Mythology, both Indian and World from Mumbai University. He is also a faculty on the subject of Comparative Mythology, at the Mumbai University, India. Utkarsh is also a regular trainer and lecturer on varying subjects at private organisations and educational institutions.

Utkarsh has more than 2 decades of experience in Sales and Business Development of IT products and solutions. He has worked with some of the well known IT organisations, some being start-ups, in India. Utkarsh is also a regular trainer and lecturer on varying subjects at private organisations and educational institutions.

Besides his Blog he is also a content provider to a few portals on similar subjects. Some of his short stories have been published in the well known literary story Blog, called LITIZEN. Utkarsh has also written a book on the subject of mythological-fiction, and working on another one, both of which are expected to be published in the next few months.